Garrison and Adrienne - Road Tripping Hell

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne's never been on a car trip before. Garrison soon discovers just exactly why that is.

"Look, I'm telling you, it will be fun. We did car trips all the time, and it gave us a chance to take, focus on spending time together, and enjoy the road." Garrison threw another of her bags in the truck. "So would you quit muttering 'first class' under your breath."

Adrienne had never been on a car trip of much more duration than the time it took to get from Westchester to Boston. Tandy, who had been on plenty of them on holidays with her uncle, had given her pointers about comfy clothes and snacks and cds and games, so she felt better prepared than she might have been, but she still didn't see the point in driving up to Toronto. "They invented airplanes for a reason, you know," she murmured skeptically. "Specifically, to cut the travel time from Westchester to Toronto from eight hours down to, like, three. And it's not as if we wouldn't be spending those eight hours together, anyway, right? We'd just be spending most of them in our hotel rather than in a tin can with wheels." At least she'd put her foot down about renting an SUV rather than going up in Garrison's Crown Vic. "I think you orchestrated all of this just so that you could get me into yoga pants and a t-shirt for eight hours."

"I find that offensive. You know I've never orchestrated anything, in the history of our relationship, that involves getting you into clothing. That's just counter-productive." He'd already caved on the SUV, and vaguely felt like his car was reproaching him from the garage. "Besides, flying is boring. Get to the airport two hours ahead of time, spend the whole time waiting in lines or eating overpriced cafeteria food while hoping there's no delays to get on board an aluminium tube with a crappy television in the seat. Fly for an hour and change, again, assuming no delays or kids screaming, kicking the back of your seat and being subjected to an endless barrage of beer farts and nicotine withdrawal induced sweats. All for the privilege of another half hour wait in cattle like pens at Customs before spending an additional 45 minutes discovering that they lost your luggage. So, really, it's more like five solid hours of boredom, frustration and institutional blandness to look at. Or we can drive the length of New York at our own pace, stopping when we want to, eating decent food, enjoying the forests and the little towns. And if you get frisky, there's plenty of places to stop for impromptu sex that doesn't land us on a 'No Fly' list, eh?"

"Ahh, the truth comes out," Adrienne teased. "You're really doing all this to stop for impromptu sex along the way. Should've known." She loaded her last bag into the trunk and stretched out on her tiptoes to close it, giving him a kiss on the cheek before sashaying over to the passenger side of the vehicle. "I brought lots of cds for the drive," she told him brightly. "First up, Spice Girls!"

***

"OK, I can tune out the Spice Girls, Taylor Swift, and who ever those neutered boy bands were, but we are not listening to Dixie Chicks. I'm drawing the line." Two hours into the drive, and it had become clear that Adrienne's musical choices revealed either a shocking lack of taste or an intentional plan to drive him mad with shitty music.

Adrienne would probably tell him later that she was proud he'd put up with that much, since it was most certainly an intentional plan to see how long it took him to go bat-shit crazy, but for now she just snickered to herself. She replaced the cd with Leonard Cohen's 'Live in London' as a peace offering to him. Or maybe just as a brief respite before she assaulted his eardrums with some more neutered boy bands. "I have to pee," she announced.

"Again? Did you stash a Big Gulp in your purse before we left?" He said, although was already pulling off for the next gas station that, ironically, had a 7-11 store attached.

"Sorry," she muttered sheepishly. "I haven't done this car trip thing before, remember? I guess it's all the water." Adrienne hadn't realized just how much of an inconvenience her constant hydrating could actually be until the time when she wasn't within easy reach of a washroom. "Clearly that fish DNA I had implanted into my system was a bad idea."

"I wouldn't make that joke. Guthrie and McCoy could do that one afternoon if they're bored enough." He pulled in, killing the engine. "Alright, I'm going to get proper road food. Do you want anything? The conditions are that it needs to be by and large unhealthy, and either sweet, salty, sour, meaty or entirely made from unrecognizable ingredients like xantham gum."

"Fish DNA would be cool," Adrienne murmured, opening her door. "How about a coff... uhh, on second thought, maybe not," she amended. "How about cookies? And peanuts? And a Mars bar? And an egg salad sandwich? And maybe some hickory sticks? And what the hell is xantham gum?"

"Yes to everything but the egg salad sandwich. Eating a gas station egg salad is the quickest way to get worms lying eggs in your brain or something."

"Eew! Thanks for that mental image! Oh, can you get me some magazines?" Adrienne asked hopefully, turning back to hand some money to him. "Cosmo, and Vanity Fair, and maybe Vogue?"

"What, you're worried they'll be short on toilet paper?"

"Don't you want me to have sex and beauty tips?" Adrienne answered, eyebrows raised innocently.

"From Cosmo? I'm dubious." He shooed her off. "Go. I need to go buy a couple of thousand calories."

***

"Why do you want me to do the quiz? Is Cosmo going to teach me sex tips now?"

Adrienne snickered as she looked over at him. She was mostly insistent on giving him the quiz because she'd started feeling kind of queasy and she was hoping that getting him to take the quiz would distract her from the nausea. "Cosmo's been giving teenage girls sex tips for decades now," she answered, as if that was a justification for what she was doing.

"Fine, I'll do the quiz." He huffed. "What's question one?"

"Well, I suppose question one would be 'which quiz do you want to take?'" Adrienne answered, stomach flipping when she looked back at the magazine. "There's... 'Is he devoted to you?' or 'what's his intimacy IQ?' Oh, or there's also "Is he only after you for your bod?"

"That one is easy. Yes. Because it's certainly not your taste in music." He pulled around a plodding SUV. "You pick. No doubt it will have a dozen questions about the clitoris."

"You consistently score an A on the clitoris quiz," the brunette smirked. "Ooo, here's one you'll enjoy. You get to tell me whether I am a quote-unquote hot challenge. Am I just... 'oozing "I'm available"', or do I make men 'slave for TLC?'" Reading from the page made her stomach flip again and she opened the window to get some fresh air as she let out a loud burp.

"Is there a third opinion? Something about 'hot until sounding like a Southy waitress at a Red Sox game'?" He said, jibbing her for the belch.

"Shaddup," she muttered, sticking her head out the window to gulp in some fresh air. After a moment or two her stomach seemed to settle and she picked up the magazine again. "First question: 'Your guy thinks he's making you climax... parentheses, so not true.' Well, we can probably skip that question," she mumbled, smirking at him. Her stomach roiled again but she ignored it and moved on to the next question. "'You... well, I, I meet a dude, let's say you," she informed him, pointing at him, "who who asks me out Saturday night, saying "let's talk Saturday afternoon," but he, I mean you, doesn't call. I... A, call you at 5, then 7, then 11, because maybe you lost my number? B, turn off my cell so it goes straight to voice mail and forget you? Or do I, C, give you a ring at 6 but make a backup plan to go out with friends?"

"D. You realize by five that you just asked out a cop, freak out about it, drive into the city and spend Saturday night eating bad Chinese food with a blue metamorph before making out."

Adrienne would have giggled if her stomach wasn't so unsettled. Instead, she just grinned, keeping her teeth gritted. "Oh, I'm sorry, the answer is E: I track you down using my powers and kick you in the balls, repeatedly, for not calling. D would have worked if I'd asked you out. But it said you asked me out. Okay, question two..." And with that her eyes went wide and she barely had time to lean out the window before vomiting.

Garrison wrenched the car over to the shoulder, so she could open the door and stagger out. He sighed as he came around the front. "Or answer F; next time you tell me you get carsick before we do one of these..."

***

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? I'm borrrrrred," Adrienne whined, arms crossed over her chest. It was probably only the fortieth time she'd asked in the last hour. Of course, she was only doing it to make up for the hour she'd been silent, humiliated after throwing up. "I can't drink, I can't read or I'll throw up- which I absolutely did not know about before, despite you thinking I did it to mess with you- and we've been driving forever. I should have hired Driver back to help us with this little excursion. He could have driven us and we could be screwing in the backseat right now."

"Yes, with your tricky stomach? I can see how well that would have gone. Vomit is very sexy." Kane said dryly, as they passed the turnoff to Rochester. "You know, for most people, this is how a vacation goes. No Driver, no first class - just where you can drive to."

"I only threw up because I was reading in the car!" Adrienne protested. "You're lucky I didn't try to fuck with you and say it was morning sickness or something," she muttered, staring out the window. Without turning her head towards him, she punched him in the shoulder. "Punch buggy no returns!"

"Yeah, that's not a funny joke." He didn't so much as twitch as the blow landed. "Also, I think that was a Prius."

"Exactly! It was a punch buggy. Tandy told me what to look for! Punch buggy no returns!" she yelled happily, hitting him again as she spotted a Dodge Colt.

"Hey! You need to know what a VW bug- stop hitting me!" Kane pulled aside from a weaving SUV.

"But it's the punch buggy game! Why would I stop?" Adrienne teased, giving him one more playful knock. "Tandy says anything with a hatchback is a punch buggy."

"It is not a-" He caught her fist with one hand, driving with the other. Her arm was essentially frozen in his grip, his preternatural strength never more apparent. He wrestled the car over to the shoulder and slammed on the brakes. He let go of her hand and pulled open the door, walking over to their luggage in back and pulling out an iPad. He tapped it and pulled up a picture of a Bug. "That is a damn punch buggy."

Adrienne's eyes widened and she let out an apologetic "whoops." She frowned at the screen. "So you mean... Tandy... was messing with us?" Amused, she smirked at Garrison. "I've taught that girl well. Hey, can I drive for a while?"

Kane just sighed and shook his head, returning the iPad to her bag and going around to get into the passenger seat.

***

"For the last time, no Dixie Chicks."

***

"Uhh... Gar?" He'd dozed off, and Adrienne hadn't wanted to wake him up, but it was getting dark and she couldn't put it off any longer. The car was stopped at a gas station and she had a map unfolded on her lap, but she was squinting at a town sign straight ahead. "Woodstock... that's... that's on our way, right?" she asked hopefully, cringing. She had no idea where the hell they were, only that there were a lot more miles on the car's odometer than there were supposed to have been.

"Wha-" Kane rubbed his eyes. Woodstock? They'd passed that hours ago.

"Woodstock. The Canada one. Is that on our way?" she repeated.

"Wood... aw, geez." He pushed himself upright. "Only if we really want to go to Detroit. Which we don't."

"Oh, Jesus. No! No we don't!" She turned the volume on the Dropkick Murphys cd down. "I hate Cadillacs. And octopusses. Octopi. Whatever." Flustered and tired, her Boston accent was leaking through in her tone. "So how did we get to Woodstock? And what the hell is in Woodstock? Other than flowers in hair and nudity and mud and drugs and rainbows and all that hippy-dippy shit?"

"That's in New York. And only if you're pushing 70." The exit was a few kilometres down the highway. "Alright, relax. We can turn around and go up the 401. Just stop freaking out. You're starting to sound like a Southy."

"It's better than sounding like a Canadian," she retorted grumpily, putting the car in gear and wrenching the steering wheel around to get them out of the parking lot. "Stupid friggin' Canadian roads with no friggin' signs that make any friggin' sense..."

"Really? You really want to go there with accents right now?"

"Yes," she decided, "yes I do." Because he'd been sleeping so she'd been bored and she'd hated the quiet in the car without talking to him and she loved that she could get into these silly insignificant verbal fights with him and just be herself without worrying that it would escalate into violence. "Because I'm driving which means you can't chuck me into a pool or anything to win the argument because if you did you'd die too. Canadian accents are lame. Eh? You wanna fight aboot it, hoser?"

"At least I don't sound like a drunk guy at a bar trying to explain Carlton Fisk's home run to his buddies when I'm about to orgasm. 'ooh yawh, yawh, up up up, aw fawk, just stay right theh, yawh, awh, hahdeh, just a bit hahdeh. I'm gawna make it, I'm gawna.... AH FAWK, YAWH YAWH HAHDEH FAWK YAWH I'M THEH FAWK I'M THEH!'. Half the time, I don't know whether to finish or flip the bat and do a home run trot."

Adrienne swerved through traffic onto the shoulder, flipping off a vehicle that blasted its horn as she cut it off, and when the car had stopped moving she glared at Garrison for several moments, mouth open. "Really?! Yeah, well... at least... at least I don't sound like... a drunk guy at a bar trying to explain Joe Carter's... trying to explain Buck Martinez's broken... argh!" Yeah, she had no comeback for that. So instead she just tried to look angry and fight back the snort of laughter that was threatening to dispel itself at the mental image of him flipping the bat and doing a home run trot during sex. "No more sex for you. Ever. Never again. I mean it," she muttered.

"Yawh, that's a wicked overreaction theh."

"I friggin' hate you," Adrienne muttered, easing the car back onto the road.

***

Vikks was sitting on the front step, sipping a Cracked Canoe and reading on her Kindle when the SUV finally pulled into the muggy drive. High Park across the street normally had a cooling effect, but with the humidity, it seemed to do nothing but trap the surrounding moisture and liberally festoon it with pollen, dust and the smell of animal excrement. A somewhat bedraggled looking pair got out of the SUV as she walked up.

"Geez, you guys are late. I thought the border guards were supposed to roll over and play nice at the sight of the badge, big brother. That not work today?"

Kane just gave her a red-eyed glare as he silently pulled his luggage from the back.

"Ooh-kay. Not a good trip, I see. Beer's in the fridge. I threw some blankets and rubber sheets on the guest bed for whatever disgusting things you're planning to do to each other tonight. You going to leave this beast here?"

Kane dropped the keys into her hands. "Take it. Burn it and push the remains into the lake. I never want to see it again."

"Oddly, this would actually be the second time I've had a request like this. But if I burn the big American gas guzzler, how are you going to get home, Gar?"

"We're flying home." He said. He caught the triumphant look on Adrienne's face, sighed and dropped his head. "First class."